Great adaptations that got it all wrong.

[PyroChamber]

What are some great movie adaptations that you think, while great, completely missed the point of what the original material was all about?

Whether they be adapted from books, comics, TV shows, cartoons, other movies, etc.

[Kurosawa]

I guess the Shining would qualify as that. It's quite different from the novel in a number of ways.

[DACrowe]

Not all of these are great movies--but they're all at least good, if piss poor adaptations of the books/plays on which they were based....

-The Wizard of Oz (1939)
-The Shining
-Jurassic Park
-Bram Stoker's Dracula (Coppola's 1992 version)
To Have, Have Not
-Hamlet (Franco Zefferelli/Mel Gibson's 1990 version)
-Batman Returns
-V For Vendetta
-Blade Runner
-The Little Mermaid

There are more. But I think all of these movies are good (WOZ, JP and BR are great), but none of them are very faithful to their literary sources.

[TenFold]

Revolutionary Road
American Psycho

[Wesley Dodds]

If you're in a good mood then Constantine is a decent enough dumb action movie but as a Hellblazer adaptation it pretty much failed to understand ANYTHING about the source material.

[Ipodman]

I love Jurassic Park... but the book is vastly different.

[bullets]

Originally Posted by Kurosawa

I guess the Shining would qualify as that. It's quite different from the novel in a number of ways.

That immediately came to mind. I think Stephen King had issues with some of those changes but he probably approves of it now.

[childeroland]

I don't know if The NeverEnding Story completely missed the point, but by doing only the first half of Michael Ende's great book, Wolfgang Petersen didn't get to a lot of Ende's themes.

Disney's Alice in Wonderland and Carroll's books have little in common aside from basic plot and characters.

Yeah, definitely The Wizard of Oz.

Malick's The Thin Red Line at least comes close to this.

[cherokeesam]

The Beverly Hillbillies, and The Dukes of Hazzard.

Both masterstrokes of cinema verite, to be sure, but their art lacked a certain je ne sais quoi

[Franklin Richards]

Dune.


Great David Lynch movie. Horrible Dune movie.

[8wid]

The Harry Potter movies after Chamber of Secrets.

[Sawyer]

The Shining. I love it, but Kubrick kind of butchered the novel.

[TheDreamMaster]

Jurassic Park at least had the basic premise down. The Lost World on the other hand...

[Ponyboy]

Someone mentioned The NeverEnding Story. Yes indeed... while I love the film for what it is, it's markedly different from the book. I'd have to crack open the book, but I believe the film only covers roughly half of the novel. The entire bit where Bastian travels to Fantastica is left out (though I think partially covered in NE Story II). It's a great shame really, because the novel is a beautiful story.

[redhawk23]

I disagree that Blade Runner missed the point. Its different certainly and ignores some of the themes of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, however I've always felt that the book and film compliment eachother well.

This evidenced by the fact that reportedly Dick recieved the workprint of Blade Runner that he saw quite well where as Stephen King hates the shining. Its all matter opinion of course but certain point were brought across and adapted.

[Rowsdower!]

Originally Posted by Ponyboy

Someone mentioned The NeverEnding Story. Yes indeed... while I love the film for what it is, it's markedly different from the book. I'd have to crack open the book, but I believe the film only covers roughly half of the novel. The entire bit where Bastian travels to Fantastica is left out (though I think partially covered in NE Story II). It's a great shame really, because the novel is a beautiful story.

Yes, that is true. I wonder... could (or should) a closer adaptation of the book be made?

I know everyone hates the idea of remakes, but I think that a new Neverending Story film that sticks closer to the book and employs modern special effects could really be quite a spectacle. And I love the original film. I probably watched it 100 times as a kid.

[CGHulk]

Gone With the Wind

[Happy Jack]

The Shining is probably the best example, because it manages to be an incredible film on its own while still being technically a lousy adaptation of the novel. At least in terms of the events depicted.

[Rowsdower!]

I'd say the first and the third (and possibly fourth) Mission:Impossible movies were somewhat poor adaptations of the TV series but were still great spy movies (the second one was just pure crap). While the TV series was was a team series through and through, the movies focus more on one superagent who just needs a few other people to help in a couple situations. Also, the only character carried over from the original series was Jim Phelps, and well... let's just say he was DRASTICALLY changed in the movies.

[Ultimatehero]

Originally Posted by Rowsdower!

I'd say the first and the third (and possibly fourth) Mission:Impossible movies were somewhat poor adaptations of the TV series but were still great spy movies (the second one was just pure crap). While the TV series was was a team series through and through, the movies focus more on one superagent who just needs a few other people to help in a couple situations. Also, the only character carried over from the original series was Jim Phelps, and well... let's just say he was DRASTICALLY changed in the movies.

Same happened in SWAT. Not saying it's a great adaptation, entertaining but characters really changed a lot.

[moviedoors]

Originally Posted by TenFold

American Psycho

I disagree with that. The movie has its flaws, but it still touches on all of the major themes in the book; apathy, vanity, misogyny, selfishness, greed, lack of identity.

The first thing that sprung to mind when I saw the thread title was First Blood. Maybe not a great movie, but a solid one. It has good acting, very well staged action, and a nice atmosphere.

And it completely and utterly misses the point of the book.

The film is firmly on John Rambo's side. Will Teasle is the over-the-top villain. Rambo just wants to be left alone, and he doesn't want to hurt anyone. If society could just leave him alone.

Rambo's side of it is in the novel, and we most certainly feel sympathy for him. But he's not the hero. There is no hero. John Rambo is a deeply troubled individual. He's deliberately defiant at the beginning, to the point where we can't blame Teasle for having to up the stakes, even though Teasle was being to drunk on power.

Rambo kills people. And though from a certain point of view, it's self defence, he really does commit some heinously cold acts of violence, sniping first the tracker dogs and then the police themselves. He'll go as far as to stalk, corner, and kill a cop from behind.

Teasle is just as much a protagonist as Rambo. He makes some poor choices at the beginning, but once things escalate, you have a better, more empathetic understanding of why he does what he does. For much of the novel, he's driven by unbearable guilt for having carelessly set off this wild animal. It's what drives him to so ruthlessly pursue putting Rambo down.

It's a novel about the hopeless means of violence, about hardheadedness, about hubris, about damage. It's an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. It's a metaphor for the Vietnam War.

[Rowsdower!]

Originally Posted by Ultimatehero

Same happened in SWAT. Not saying it's a great adaptation, entertaining but characters really changed a lot.

Never saw that (the TV show or the movie). Were either any good?

[DACrowe]

Originally Posted by redhawk23

I disagree that Blade Runner missed the point. Its different certainly and ignores some of the themes of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, however I've always felt that the book and film compliment eachother well.

This evidenced by the fact that reportedly Dick recieved the workprint of Blade Runner that he saw quite well where as Stephen King hates the shining. Its all matter opinion of course but certain point were brought across and adapted.

The point of the book was androids cannot be human and that our future is a desolate inhuman/artificial one. In Ridley Scott's film the androids are more human than the actual humans who are depicted as fascist villains who hunt them down. The end raises the point of what is humanity and what is a soul as Roy had more of one than Decker did at that point. Decker falls in love with an android which goes against the very concept Dick came up with....but I prefer Blade Runner.

Also, Dick only saw work footage of the big special effects and city shots. He never saw the completed narrative. He was blown away by the visual realization of his story, this is true.

[DACrowe]

Originally Posted by CGHulk

Gone With the Wind

Really? They cut out one of her kids and wisely marginalized a lot of the KKK stuff, but it was a pretty faithful adaptation that the author clearly adored as much as the audiences did.

[Rowsdower!]

Originally Posted by moviedoors

I disagree with that. The movie has its flaws, but it still touches on all of the major themes in the book; apathy, vanity, misogyny, selfishness, greed, lack of identity.

The first thing that sprung to mind when I saw the thread title was First Blood. Maybe not a great movie, but a solid one. It has good acting, very well staged action, and a nice atmosphere.

And it completely and utterly misses the point of the book.

The film is firmly on John Rambo's side. Will Teasle is the over-the-top villain. Rambo just wants to be left alone, and he doesn't want to hurt anyone. If society could just leave him alone.

Rambo's side of it is in the novel, and we most certainly feel sympathy for him. But he's not the hero. There is no hero. John Rambo is a deeply troubled individual. He's deliberately defiant at the beginning, to the point where we can't blame Teasle for having to up the stakes, even though Teasle was being to drunk on power.

Rambo kills people. And though from a certain point of view, it's self defence, he really does commit some heinously cold acts of violence, sniping first the tracker dogs and then the police themselves. He'll go as far as to stalk, corner, and kill a cop from behind.

Teasle is just as much a protagonist as Rambo. He makes some poor choices at the beginning, but once things escalate, you have a better, more empathetic understanding of why he does what he does. For much of the novel, he's driven by unbearable guilt for having carelessly set off this wild animal. It's what drives him to so ruthlessly pursue putting Rambo down.

It's a novel about the hopeless means of violence, about hardheadedness, about hubris, about damage. It's an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. It's a metaphor for the Vietnam War.

Wow, that sounds really good. Now I have to read the novel. I never knew it was so drastically different from the film.